"Marxian" and a few other words & phrases I've coined

By no means a comprehensive list!!! Merely the tip of the iceberg, if even that!!! At any rate, here are a few: Marxian. I was reminded of this one of mine while attending a Hegel conference at the University of Pittsburgh. I use this term to describe someone who believes that political systems are derivative of economic systems or economic circumstances, but who doesn't necessarily buy into the whole notion of "class struggle" or the like. Those people would be called Marxists, as I guess most could deduce. Note that many Marxians are not of the political left!!!! Many so-called conservatives or free-marketeers are actually Marxians!!!! One sees this especially in debates about free trade and open markets and the like, when comments like "Only when the Chinese economy develops can we have a situation where the Chinese people have political rights or a democracy." Many Marxians' bank accounts grow in size bigly while people in Third World countries wait for their political rights. "Depression millionaires." People who grew up in the Depression, who learned frugality during that time, and who, after World War II, just started to save money without any real desire to get rich. However, with the stock market booms of the 1980s, 1990s, and 200s/2010s their net worths reached well into the seven figures...all without making any specific or direct effort to become "millionaires." (Note that, coincidentally, not a small amount of the increase in their assets came from policies enacted by the "Marxians" as described above). "Gray-haired hippies." Fairly obvious what this one means!!!! People well into their 60s or 70s, who still in many ways have the mindsets or at least ideals--and in some cases hairstyles!!!- of hippies :) "Twentysomething teenagers." Well, I guess this would be sort of a complement of "gray-haired hippies." In today's economy and society, it is very difficult to "get started" with any serious career outside of a few privileged fields even well into one's 20s. So, they are living in many ways like teenagers!!!! Not that, given their options, there's anything wrong with that. "Thousand geeks in garages." People who (in many cases are "twentysomethings" or even actual teenagers!) are launching startups, often high-tech, in garages. "Excel @$$hole." A person who has no idea of what he or she is doing but just sits there and moves numbers around on an Excel spreadsheet, thinking that he/she is being productive or is saving his/her company some money. I have quite a few more of these but figured I'd get some of these out now on this lunchbreak; some of these need to be used in wider if indeed not general circulation!!!!!!! One that can be added to this is "the Rip van Winkle" test. Imagine yourself going to sleep for 5/ 10/ 20+ years. You have to bring something with you that, in a particular filed or area, will still be "going strong" when you wake up. E.g., you have to teach a class on the US Civil War. What text would you take with you? Et cetera to the maxxx on this one!!!!!

Reassuring Words From The Political Left

Nat Hentoff makes sense yet again.

It's good to see sometimes that despite the seemingly insurmountable political divide between right and left, Democrat and Republican, "blue state" and "red state," that some people can cut through all of that to remind us of what we all have in common.

Just today I saw a link to a Nat Hentoff article from a website I often check. This link, listed below, was yet another eloquent, well-reasoned, and incontrovertibly-correct statement of a position that he as a liberal is compelled to take--the pro-life position. Good to see that he knows what his position must be...and has the courage to

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060611-094355-4289r.htm




http://www.feministsforlife.org/

Happy Birthday, John Lennon

The political campaign(s) are WAY too involved for me to offer any serious opinions about, so I'll just add something here about another subject, of historical and musical significance:

John Lennon was born on this date, October 9, 1940, sixty-eight years ago. He would have been 68 today, but as we all know, he was murdered in December 1980, just shortly after reaching his 40th birthday.

It would take me hundreds of lengthy posts for me to put up most of the Beatles thoughts I've had over the years, so for now, just this brief one in tribute to the late John Lennon and his former bandmate and occasional songwriting and creative partner:

"John Lennon was a very creative person who was sometimes musical, and Paul McCartney was a very musical person who was sometimes creative" -- Greg Yoest (me)

Al Gore Wins The Nobel Peace Prize !!!!!

Then again, so did Woodrow Wilson :-)

a humble tribute to the late GREAT President Gerald Ford

THANK YOU PRESIDENT FORD !!!!!!!!!

Hey, look, what else can I say?????? If you look at my blog, you'll see an early attempt at my endeavor to show the great respect that I have for this profoundly great American. I had definitely hoped that I would have had many more months to write my small and humble tribute to this great person, a tribute which I tried to begin several months ago when I had heard of an illness which at the time seemed to be terminal. At that time I was glad that I was given more time--indeed what at that time seemed to be a large amount of time but which perhaps in retrospect was too short a time-- to compose my own personal tribute to this great American. Now that time has come to an end, at least as far as he in his earthly life can appreciate.

If the tears that I am shedding as I try to type this tribute do not interfere with my continued attempt to type it, I can and will only try to add to the many and deserving tributes and memorials that I hear on the TV and radio in the background at this hour my own small and humble THANK YOU for the life and service which so greatly benefitted my life and the lives of all Americans and indeed all people who are alive today on this date, December 26 2006, the day of his passing. For those who do not know or understand what happened during his brief and unique Presidency, I can only refer you to his own words, the very first words we Americans heard him utter as our 38th President--"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." How true those words turned out to be; how few politicians in the United States have spoken words such as those and THEN turned out to have made his actions square with those words he had so spoken. It is difficult to look at the good that this nation known in human history as the United States of America has performed or has had the capacity to perform since that fateful date in early August of 1974 without emphatically placing the person of Gerald Rudolph Ford at the center of that capability and performance. In the great tradition of the Christian religion that he, and I, and so many of his fellow countrymen profess, "May God have mercy on his soul, and grant him eternal peace."

What else can I say????? Perhaps the passage of time will show to all how great a leader this man was. Indeed, the simplistic and childish criticism that he received during his Presidency now seems to be comical, the ultimate and at-long-last-actor-acknowledged comic retort to the barbs he suffered during his administration. After learning of his death, ironically on a sports-oriented cable-TV network at a local restaurant, I drove home holding back my tears and only honking my car's horn when it looked to me that no other cars were around. No *FM* radio station on my buttons had any news of his passing; when switching to _AM_ the first and best coverage of this sad news was found ironically on a sports-oriented station, one which intersperced his athletic career and interests with his life as a statesman and politician. How appropriate that the first real coverage of Ford's death that I heard combined his negotiations over nuclear weapons numbers in Vladivostok with the then-Soviet leadership alongside his own simultaneous interest in his college alma mater's great Big Ten football rivalry. How many Americans could waste their time on college football rivalries thanks to the work that President Ford did will probably never be appreciated.

Maybe someday I will finish my own personal tribute to this great guy. Knowing my procrastination, that may not be for some time. Still, at any rate, it's kept me up for two hours in the middle of the night. How many Americans and people of other countries have been able to sleep in the middle of their own personal nights is practically impossible to calculate,and maybe is the ultimate tribute to the person who held the 38th Presidency of the United States of America. One more time,

THANK YOU PRESIDENT FORD !!!!!!

Super Bowl Posts--Part III--The Outcome

Well, here it is--the result of tonight's game!!!!

In advance, nonetheless!!!

Two predictions--one was a dream, where a 31-17 Steeler lead VERY late in the game ended up after a few TERRIBLE replay calls as a 31-31 tie going into overtime. Another TERRIBLE replay review cancelled out a game-winning Steeler touchdown, and a lame and anti-climactic score from the other team led to a Steeler loss, BUT, with all the announcers saying publicly how badly the Steelers had been treated by the refs and how they really won the game, 15 years from now everyone will say "Wow, remember the year that the Steelers got ripped off? Who'd they play that year??!?!"

For those of you who're panicked at that dream, don't worry--in my dream the "other team" was the Dallas Cowboys, not Seattle. Also, the overtime rules in my dream were the "alternating possessions from the ten-yard-line" rules of high-school playoffs, not the NFL, sooo...don't take this too seriously :)

My *conscious* prediction, such as it is, was posted earlier on Chris Lilik's excellent GrassrootsPa site (www.grassrootspa.com) in the Comments section. It goes like this:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steelers win, 24-19 or 24-21 depending on whether the Seahawks make the 2-point conversion after their very-very-late touchdown.

Slow start for the Steelers, who're up 10-7 or 10-3 at halftime BUT who should be blowing the 'Hawks off the field. Roethlesberger's a little tight in the first half, but finds his groove in the second; Seahawks can never figure out Steelers defense and rarely make any progress.

Shawn Alexander's the leading rusher (110+ yards), BUT, the (REAL) MVP, Willie Parker, keeps the Steelers O moving (89 total rushing yards) until the 2nd half, when MVP Jerome Bettis' 2 touchdowns (one of them maybe a catch or a throw) take charge of the game. Steelers try to run out the clock, but, like I said, Seahawks come back and make it closer than it should've been.

Scariest moment is a failed Steelers gadget play that maybe turns into an interception and Seahawks score--should've bene a TD but D holds 'Hawks to a FG.

Either all of that will happen or maybe something else

Guess we should all watch the game and find out!!!!!!!!
Greg Yoest | 02.05.06 - 8:09 am | #
----------------------------------------------------------------------

So, somewhere in my two predictions--my dream and my posting--I have stated the truth--the Steelers will either win or they will lose!!!!!!

Going to enjoy watching the game and finding out!!!!!!!

Super Bowl Posts--Part II--It's A 'Burgh Thing

This one will be SUPER-brief.

I just want to mention to all of you out there an observation that I saw earlier in the week. See, the news media here in Pgh. was sending reporters to Seattle to cover how things were taking shape up there, and Seattle newspapers did the same thing. The thing that those two crews saw, and which was highlighted better in the Seattle papers than it was in the Pgh papers, was how fanatic the fans are here in Pgh. vs. pretty much anywhere else.

Basically, the reports in the Seattle papers said, "You can't really understand what's going on over here unless you're here." As someone who for whatever reason or reasons hasn't worn any Steeler apparel during this two-week time period, I keep an eye out for those who also aren't doing so. Note--there aren't too many others out there!!!! I guess that's even more obvious to an outsider than it is to someone like me. The fact that that's unique to this area is maybe the news that is contained in those reports...

...along with the fact that all of the fan events are homegrown, grassroots, NOT mass-Hollywood-produced as they are in so many other cities. Maybe that's the esssence of the statement that the Steelers nation has been making up there in Detroit and has been doing so for the last two weeks both up there and at five hundred sports bars around the country. The good news is that the result will be (well, wait 'til the next post to learn the results of tonight's game!!!) :)

Super Bowl Posts--Part I--A Few Memories

Super Bowl Posts--Part I-- A Few Memories

(maybe the real title of this post could be, "Question--When did the Super Bowl become such a media event? Answer--In betwween Super Bowls X and XIII, 1977 -1979.")

It's Super Bowl Sunday, breakfast time, and no, my Super Sunday breakfast isn't going the same way that Hunter S. Thompson's was as fictionally-immortalized by Bill Murray in the 1980 classic "Where The Buffalo Roam," but hey, it *is* Super Sunday breakfast, and why not celebrate it by blogging a few posts about Steeler Super Bowls past and present. I have a ton more memories of the four Steeler championships and one Steeler loss than I will be able to post here, but lte me share just a few now:

Super Bowl IX, the first one the Steelers were in, was in January 1975. The Steelers had made it somehwhat unexpectedly, having beaten the dreaded Raiders in the AFC Championship on the road in Oakland, and were peaking at the right time. They were up against the Minnesota Vikings, the "Purple People Eaters" who'd been in the Super Bowl twice before (twice out of eight previous Super Bowls up to that point, not too bad), and at least some of us guys in the pre-junior-high expertise that we all had were saying that, hey, it would be OK to make it to the Super Bowl this year and make it again next year and win it that time. See, that pattern had happened several times previously, with a team making it to the big game only to lose, then coming back the next year and winning--cf. the Miami Dolphins 1972-1974. The Steelers were the type of team that was getting better year-by-year, and their 10-3-1 record in the 1974 season was pretty good but not what football fans had come to expect for a champion--the 1972 Dolphins, undefeated all season long, had set the standard and the Steelers weren't quite there yet. So, as a kid, I'm thinking that maybe the Steelers are in the Super Bowl this year and, consistent with the regular progression that they had shown over the last several seasons, they'll be champs next year.

However, the Steelers, and especially their coach Chuck Noll, had other ideas. In comments that in that day wouldn't be allowed to make it into the media, he apparently called his team aside after the first round of the playoffs and commented on the "other" playoff game that had happened that weekend. The Steelers had easily defeated someone, some team in their first game, and were advancing to the AFC Championship Game against the winner of the Dolphin-Raider game. That game featured the Ken Stabler/John Madden-led Oakland Raiders, by that time already becoming Steeler rivals after the "Immaculate Reception" game, against the Miami Dolphins, victors of the previous two Super Bowls and somewhat weakened by defections to the World Football League (remember that!!!) but still one of the better teams in football. In a classic matchup that came down to the last play, the Raiders pulled it out to advance to the AFC Championship. The "mistake" that the Raiders made was after the game, when Raiders coach John Madden was interviewed and as a compliment to the Dolphins made the comment, "It's a shame that someone had to lose that game, we both were so excellent" or words to that effect. Well, in what was probably one of the first "motivational" speeches in the modern NFL, Steelers coach Chuck Noll took the newspaper clipping containing that quote and brought it into the Steelers locker room the next day, read it to the Steelers and held it up in fornt of them, saying, "Hey, lookie here, they just think that they won the fucking Super Bowl!!! They think they're the best fucking team in football!!! Ha ha, what do they know, WE'RE the best fucking team in football, and they're going to find that out this Sunday!!!!" Steelers linebacker Andy Russell later remembered that speech as a real turning point in Steelers' history, as up until then they were a team with nothing but a losing tradition who finally were starting to get good. To be told that they were not just a good team, but their coach thought that they were the best fucking team in football, was a real shot in the arm for that franchise and those players, literally almost every single one of them had never played for any other team than the Steelers.

That was one of the great things about the Steelers of the 1970s, the entire team for like four seasons was composed of players who had been drafted by the Steelers and who had played for no other team than the Pittsburgh Steelers. No trades, no free agents, all homegrown talent. (that didn't apply to the 1974 team, I don't believe, but maybe kicked in around the seasons 1976-1979, but still, *most* players on the Steelers four Super Bowl victories were Steeler draftees.)

So anyhoo, the Steelers make it to the Super Bowl after having been told that they were the best team in football, and end up playing the team that may have been the best team in football--the Minnesota Vikings. The Purple People Eaters were probably heavy favorites, and rightly so, but the Steelers had some weapons that nowadays are standard on any NFL team but back then were kind of novelties. The Steelers had offensive linemen ALL OF WHOM who could pull and trap, not just one or two who they would use as a novelty. The Steelers had a running back whose primary job was as a blocker--Rocky Bleier. The NFL had just come off of the Dolphins' two Super Bowl wins, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Csonka and Kiick) were the first two backs in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards in the same season (I think they were the first two). The Steelers went the other direction--sacrifice one of your backs so that the other can shine. (Ironically, after several seasons of that approach, their "blocking" back, Rocky Bleier, ended up with over 1,000 yards himself, along with Franco Harris, their prima donna, thus joining that elite crew). Finally, the Steelers had a defense. No, not just a defensive line, although they had that. No, not just a linebacker corps, although they had that; not just a secondary, although they had that. The Super Steelers of the 1970s were the first team in modern NFL history who had a full-scale, complete defense that was as integral to their overall gameplan as was their offense. They would try to dominate the line, and usually did. If that failed, though, their linebackers would eat up any running backs who came through, and any attempts to pass would result in (a) a quarterback sack from the defensive line or (b) the inability to find any open receivers as cornerback Mel Blount had put one WR on his butt right at the line of scrimmage and any open areas deep in the field would be covered by one of their linebackers, middle linebacker Jack Lambert sometimes being seen 40 yards (!) downfield on pass coverage. This was the key to the Steelers success in the 1970s, at least the first half of the decade--their comprehensive, all-bases-covered defense.

Super Bowl IX was played on January 12, 1975 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. The game and the ambience that surrounded it was at that time so low-key that we--along with everyone else I knew--didn't even have a Super Bowl party!!!!!! Wow, how could that happen??!?!?!?!? My father invited our next-door neighbor over, along with his son who was roughly my age, and the four of us sat down and watched the Super Bowl!!!!! That was it--no parties, no pizza, no betting pools, no pep songs, no house decorations, no phone calls from out-of-town relatives, no nothing--just a Sunday afternoon football game with your next-door neighbors over to watch it!!!! Guys only, not that the women weren't welcome, they just weren't interested!!!!! Four guys sat around and watched a football game on Sunday afternoon--no big deal whatsoever!!!! (MY how times have changed!!!!)

I can honestly say that I don't remember much about the game. I remember that the Steelers were playing well, and that they deserved to win, and that it was a "Steeler" game insofar as it was a defensive, "field position" game that favored the Steelers' approach. I also remember that the TV that we had at the time [airwaves TV, of course, no cable back then] was very temperamental, and since I had figured out the fine-tuning mechanism that would make it work I was ordered by my father to sit close to the TV and fix it immediately if any problems arose. (None did, by the way, but I was ready in case it had).

The Steelers won, of course, but that's about all there was to it. No parades, no celebrations, no victory shots, no nothing--just a win, we all cheered, Kerry and Brian Aquadro went back home next door, and we all woke up the next morning and went to school/work. That was it--Steelers win the Super Bowl, yippeee!!! now let's get back to what we were doing.

Scary thought, but the next year, Super Bowl X, was *very* similar. Kerry Aquadro returned the favor, inviting my father and I over to their house to watch the game, with a few more guests this time from the host's family, and my mother and Mrs. Aquadro now took an interest in watching it too, but sort of sat in the background and only watched when things got interesting. I think that they had gotten the bowls out too for the potato chips, and not just passed around the bag like we'd done the year before. Still, I wouldn't say that that event was a "Super Bowl party." We just watched the game, rooted for the Steelers, and hoped for the best-- an awful lot like the year before.

Another thing that was similar to the game the year before--and here at long last we're finally getting to answer the question that I asked above, "When did the Super Bowl become such a media event?"--was the time of day when the game was played. See, one of the things that I remember about Super Bowl IX in Jan. 12, 1975 was after the game, when we won, Kerry and Brian Aquadro went home out our back door, a sliding glass patio door, and walked home next door into their back, sliding-glass patio door, all in braod daylight. Super Bowl X, against the Dallas Cowboys, ended with a Hail Mary pass from Roger Staubach into the Steelers end zone which, ahd it been caught, would've led to a Cowboys' victory. Instead, it was intercepted by a Steelers d-back named Glenn Edwards, and instead of walking home next door out the back door, I ran out onto the street out the front door and screamed, "The Steelers won!!! Glenn Edwards you're our hero!!!!" BUT STILL...all in broad daylight!!!!!!! I doubt it was even five o'clock Eastern time when the game ended--if it was still light outside, it must've been early, as sunset in Pitsburgh in early January is just after 5 pm. Another football game, another Steeler victory, yippeee, wasn't that nice!!! The Campbells, across the street and a few houses down, also had some people over to watch the game, and we all met out on the street and high-fived each other, but not a whole lot more than that.

The 1976 and 1977 Steeler seasons, after winning two in a row and being the favorites for a third, were somewhat disappointing, with the injury-riddled 1976 Steelers losing to the hated Oakland Raiders after the team's best all-around defensive season of their dynasty, but too exhausted by early January to take it all the way. The 1977 season had the Steelers back into the playoffs and lose their first-round game, which they shouldn't have even been in at all. So, the end of the road????

No, not so fast. A re-tooled approach, now focusing on offense instead of defense, got the Steelers back into the Super Bowl after the 1978 season, and on January 1979 the Steelers went to to play the Cowboys again.

You all know the rest of the story, "Steelers first team to ever win three Super Bowls," blah blah blah, and I don't have time to fill you in on all the details of the game if you don't, but I will say this--I watched the game at a Super Bowl party that my parents threw with about 25 guests, a full spread of food, snacks,and drinks, TVs tuned into the game in every room including the bathroom, and my father having hooked up the speakers on the family stereo to blast the Steelers' fight song (the Pennsylvania Polka with different, Steeler-oriented words) after every Steelers score. I daresay that everyone else I knew was watching the game in the same fashion that year--VERY different than it was a mere three years earlier. Also, the game was at night, at least in Pittsburgh's time zone, and by the time it was over, it was pitched black--well after dark. Furthermore, there were all sorts of events associated with the game that had N-O-T-H-I-N-G to do with football, like on the network that was televising the game a "Super Bowl Saturday Night" special that I naively thought was a preview of the game but was nothing more than a cheesy, tacky variety show with no entertainers from either Pittsburgh or Dallas or for that matter no references whatsoever to the two teams that were actually in the game!!!!!!!

Tons, tons, tons more memories of Super Bowls past from the city that won four times in the 1970s (and lost once in the 1990s, in what was maybe the best of their five games actually), but that's enough for now, especially since I've already answered the question, "When did the Super Bowl become such a media event??" The answer--sometime in between the Steelers' first two and last two wins in the 1970s :)

Montana's 1990 Congressional Reapportionment, "One Person, One Vote," and the Samuel Alito Confirmation Hearings

Well, here we are, at long last the confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito, the nominee for the US Supreme Court. I haven't been watching them from beginning to end, but the parts of it that I have seen are "good TV"--a combination of intelligent questioning of the nominee, bombastic and long-winded "questioning" by egomaniacs who believe that their ideas and opinions are the centers of attention in these hearings and not those of the nominee, and some good old-fashioned childish behavior on the part of grown adults who somehow have gotten to be US Senators. Generally seems to be going well for the nominee, with those who are obviously opposed to his nomination having shifted tactics from any sort of direct questioning of him or his legal positions to the idea that they could Bork him on his past membership in a group called the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP).

That last matter had been predicted before the hearings began, namely, that those who couldn't "Bork" him on his legal credentials might go after that CAP issue. I could easily comment on that issue as that organization was very active on campus during the years when I attended that university, but really, the positions that CAP took--and the tone that they used to present them--really deserve their own full and complete telling in their own right, and not merely as an undercard for these Alito hearings. Suffice it to say that they might remind a contemporary conservative talk-radio junkie of Michael Savage--someone whose opinions you might agree with, but who is so offensive and so obnoxious that you wonder whether or not he's a plant for the other side, an agent provocateur designed to cause problems from within. CAP was that obnoxious.

So, the one issue that was predicted to come up in the attempted Borking of Samuel Alito seems to have both come forth, and seems to be going nowhere. Let me then turn my attention to another issue that was predicted to possibly arise,w hich so far hasn't ut which still might AND which actually has jurisprudential significance--the issue of redistricting, specifically "one person, one vote." For those of you who don't know what that is, it basically is a US Supreme Court decision which requires that, consistent with "equal protection under the law," when district lines are drawn for elected representative bodies like state legislatures, city councils, etc., that those districts have roughly equal populations. That is to prevent a state legislature with, say 80 Legislators, from having some of its districts with 30,000 people living in them and others with 74,000--if every legislator gets one and only one vote, it's easy to see that the people in the district with 30k people have a much greater per capita voice in the State House than the people in the district with 74k people. Easy enough--and fair enough.

I am unfamiliar with the cases that came before the US Supreme Court that generated this standard, but I believe that they are from the 1960s, and involved seats where rural areas in certain (southern?) states had (significantly) greater per capita representation in their state legislatures than did urban areas, and there was some element of skin color involved too, in that by and large black citizens had, in effect, less per capita representation than white citizens did. Fair enough, and it's good that we now have that "one person, one vote" standard to guide us...although, in fairness to our country, our situation NEVER got SO BAD as the British situation, where House Of Commons seats drawn many centuries ago ended up in some cases by the 20th century as having zero (zero!) inhabitants!!!!!! Admittedly it seems that way sometimes, when one looks at some members of the US Hosue and US Senate, as "NO ONE" could possibly have voted for them and therefore they must represent an area where "NO ONE" lives, but in fact that is not the case, they all (scary thought!!!) come from some place where someone, somewhere actually voted for them.

No, the case at hand in the Alito hearings is not the fairness of the "one person, one vote" standard, nor its existence, but rather its applicability. The application of the standard, the notion that every apportioned representative should represent roughly the same number of people, has been taken so far, and to such ridiculous lengths, that it has degenerated into arithmetic absurdity and resulted in the creation of district lines that when viewed on a map are so ridiculous that they look like the chicken scratch of a blindfolded toddler. In other words, with the exact population figures available to state legislatures and those other entities charged with the drawing of district lines which are provided to them every ten years by the "actual enumeration" known as the US Census, especially empowered with the numerical and graphical power of even commercially-available computers in the last 20 or so years, district lines have been drawn so ridiculously and so much with a singleminded adherence to "one person one vote" that in many cases they bear absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to any sort of natural or pre-existing political, social, or geographical real-world boundaries. That is to say, the district lines for seats like US Congress, state representative or state legislature, city council etc., in many cases end up willy-nilly crossing rivers, township boundaries, county or school district boundaries, dividing communities down the middle of roads or even residential streets, and otherwise making no sense whatsoever, all for the purpose of making sure that at one point in the past they contained almost-exactly-equal numbers of people on the date of April 1st in a year ending in zero when the US Census is considered to be taken. This level of ridiculousness is not *necessarily* mandated by the US Supreme Court's "one person, one vote" requirement, but so many states and localities live in fear of a federal civil rights suit--and don't want to incur the expenses involved in litigation if they are on the receiving end of one--that in effect, district lines are regularly drawn with regard to no other factor than the "mathematical equivalence" standard (and the skin-color demographics of the citizens so involved, which was also a factor in the original US Supreme Court case).


So this standard, good as it is, has been applied to an absurd degree. NOW WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MONTANA AND ITS US CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION!!!!????!?!?!?!!

Well, like many other things in life, there's a link that's not immediately apparent. See, the US House of Representatives is one of those legislative bodies which apportions it representatives based on population. That is, in fact, the official reason why the US Census is conducted every ten years. A total tally is taken of the population of the country as a whole, and of each state in particular, and each state gets to send to Congress a number of representatives "proportional" to its population. (The US Senate, of course, is different--two Senators from every state).

Simple as that notion of Proportionality" might seem, it is in fact actually very difficult to balance. If there were 14 total seats to assign to three bodies of 5,000 people each, each body should get 4 2/3 seats--how would that work??!?!?!? One way of doing so is to "tinker" with the seats--in the above case it would be easy to make 15 total seats, and each body gets 5 reps. For a while the US House did just that, but even then it wasn't easy--the very first veto ever cast by a US President was when George Washington vetoed the first Congressional reapportionment plan after the 1790 Census. Still, it's doable--if you're willing to tinker with the total number of seats.

Starting in 1913, the US House wasn't willing to tinker anymore--it set the total size of the US House at 435 members. The problem with that was that the formula they were then using to assign seats to each state, the "Vinton" or Hamilton" method, created what was hypothetically called the "Alabama Paradox," where one state (in this case, Alabama) could theoretically be the only state in the Union to GAIN population, where every other state in the Union LOSES population...and yet Alabama would still lose seats in the US House!!!! (This did not actually happen, but was discussed as a possibility in a 1920(?) article in the Harvard Law Review (?) by a Harvard Law Professor(?) whose name escapes me at the moment. I know it was around 1920, and either Harvard Law Review or Harvard Law Prof or both, if anyone wants to look it up). So by 1940 the US eventually came up with the "method of equal proportions," which is too difficult to describe here but which they have used ever since every ten years after each census.

(a good overview--but only an overview-- of some of these issues can be found at http://www.mit.edu/~17.251/redistricting.pdf for other geeks out there like myself).


NOW WHAT DOES ALL OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SAMUEL ALITO!!!!!!!????!!!! :)

Good question. Samuel Alito has been criticized for his criticism of the "one person, one vote" standard. NOT THE STANDARD PER SE, as the despicable elements amongst his opponents will try to allege, but rather, crtitical of its hyperabsurd arithmetic applicability--the notion that ALL districts have to have almost-exactly-equal numbers of people in them no matter how ridiculous the districts so created end up becoming. Maybe keep an entire county in some state in the same US Conrgessional District and settle for a 3% variance in populations, rather than take one of its 15 townships out of it and get a 0.4% variance--makes sense to me!!!!!...

...and also to the US Supreme Court, although they may never have said so explicitly. See (and we finally get to Montana!!!!), after the 1990 Census, Montana sued the US Department of Commerce (which runs the census) because the "method of equal proportions" of assigning seats in the US House of representatives ended up costing it a seat in Congress. "Hey, it happens all the time, every ten years, get over it Big Skyers" blah blah blah...but Montana actually raised an interesting issue. See, Montana went from two House seats to one--one super-large, At-Large seat that had like 886,000 people!!!!! Big seat, VERY big seat, almost twice the size as the smallest seats in the House--so wasn't that unfair???? Wasn't the "method of equal proportions" unfair..and in violation of the "one person one vote" concept?????

NO, said the US Supreme Court!!!!!! In 1992, they upheld the Constitutionality of the "method of equal proportions" WHILE AT THE SAME TIME SAYING THAT IT MET THE STANDARD OF "ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE!!!!!!" Ergo, even by throwing out the sui generis cases of states that have only one House seat, some states with the same number of House members had variations of like 18% in the average sizes of their House districts. Wow, that's a HUGE variation...but, since it dealt with pre-existing entities like states of the United States, certainly "communities of common interest," it was allowed to stand!!!! Now, while residing in one state as opposed to another is a much bigger switch than crossing a county line or a school district line within a state, still, those latter boundary lines also have significance within states for matters such as taxation, form of local government, land-use rules, jurisdiction of law enforcement agencies (in some states state police have no jurisdiction in certain counties, as the New York state police have no jurisdiction in the five counties collectively known as New York City)., etc. etc. etc. SO WHY, THEN, CUT ACROSS THOSE BORDERS TO RELIGIOUSLY ADHERE TO MATHEMATICALLY-EQUAL POPULATIONS IN STATE HOUSE DISTRICTS?????!!!!!!!!

Samuel Alito asks that very good question, and has taken positions in his writings to that effect. Some of the vermin opposed to him are trying to make him look like a racist for doing so. They are not correct; even the US Supreme Court said so in 1992. Whether or not this becomes an issue in his confirmation hearings remains to be seen, but at any rate he is in the right with the positions he has taken on this, and hopefully he can get onto the Supreme Court if for no other reason than to deal with some of the issues related to "one person, one vote" and other districting issues that will be coming before it in the near future.